by: Richard Boadu
Football season is finally here. No, not the preseason, real games. High schools all across the country are starting their football seasons today. Pee Wee football and Pop Warner to some has or will start their seasons tomorrow also.
I used to live in Miami in 2006. One thing that I always heard about was the high school football, but more importantly the Pee Wee football. I witnessed first hand how entertaining these games were. There’s definitely something in the water in South Florida, because these kids lived and breathed football. The same can be said about Texas, California and Louisiana, but in South Florida, it’s just different.
Aside from the incredible athletes doing their thing on the field, there was a spectacle happening in stands and on the sidelines — people gambling. No, not shooting dice, they’re gambling on the games. The very same games that are being played by kids. Some of the people gambling are parents. Yes, parents of those same kids playing.
I’ll never forget watching a team get demolished. They were down three touchdowns at halftime. The star player came off the field visibly upset. He took off his helmet and looked to the stands and said,
“Mama how much you got on it?” She responds with a broken voice, “The electric bill money baby”.
Her son’s eyes light up and he does the same thing to the scoreboard in the second half scoring five touchdowns and leading his team to victory. Keeping the electricity on in his home and adding money inside his mother’s bra weren’t the only things this hood superstar did. The young pseudo electrician also collected hundreds of dollars from the neighborhood dopeboys that gambled on the game. He won them some money and they were gracious enough to give him twenty bucks here and fifty bucks there.
I’d never seen anything like this in my life and that was seven years ago. The video above is two years old and I haven’t been to see a Miami youth league football game in sometime, but I doubt much has changed.